It becomes easier to talk to people if I don’t sleep for days.  

I don’t know why, but everything is easier like that.  Stumbling down the street, drinking a Redbull to keep myself awake for the coming day.  Another day’s work.

 

Dax offers me a free psychological exam. Because I helped him out with some earphones.

“I thought we were cool, man.  What the Hell,” I joke, and laugh.  Dax laughs too.

 

But deep down, I know I don’t want anyone poking around inside my head.  I know things aren’t quite right…like entering a room for the first time and sensing that the bed is too narrow, or the table is crooked.

I don’t need anyone to confirm that feeling for me.  I feel that all the time.

“Reconnecting with people from my past is a certain delicacy,” she says.  

Like being plucked up as a curiosity, but I don’t want that.  

Pick up where we left off or leave me alone.  Don’t come around looking for words. Words don’t mean anything anymore.  

At least, the ones people say.  Driveling out and gone.

If you mean it, write it.  Take the time, and find a blank space, and write your heart out.  

What’s missing, what’s wanted, what’s crucial or ached for.  

Another day off burned up and wasted.  The nagging thought that I could be making more money and being more than what I am.  

But, but, but.

Just a thought, an idea, a whim.  It doesn’t really matter.

Everything comes and goes.  

Everything keeps on moving.  

Only you remain stuck.  

I write a long email back, telling her to give me a call sometime.  But to no effect.

Just silence.  

Nothing can entice her to reach out.  Just like all those times now in the past; this nervous person at the edge of my periphery, darting in and out of my spectrum.

 

Like a ghost, or so much static.  

 

But real, real if I can remember.  

 

I keep saving money.  

Eating less everyday.

Lifting weights.  

Smoking cigarettes.  

Trimming my beard.  

One day, some day, if we meet again, I might look better.  I might be better.

I might be the kind of person you could care for.  

Long after the fact.  A boat slipped loose of its mooring, drifting down-river.  

To not contend and follow an innate rhythm.